News

2017 Tinker Fellow Brenda Garcia Millan (MA International Studies, 2018) has been selected to participate in the prestigious Latino Mental Health International Research Training Program (MHIRT), sponsored by the University of Southern California Department of Psychology. As a MHIRT fellow, Brenda will spend her summer working alongside her faculty mentor, Dr. Shoshana Berenzon Gorn, at the National Psychiatric Institute in Mexico City, where her research will focus on improving access to mental health care for underserved communities. MHIRT is funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, and is designed to train the next generation of researchers focused on reducing mental health disparities for U.S. Latinx communities. Kristin Yarris, assistant professor of international studies, is also an MHIRT Faculty Mentor.

Brenda was also awarded the distinguished and extremely competitive Fulbright English Teaching Assistantship (ETA) Award to teach in Madrid, Spain. Starting Fall 2018, Brenda will be working at an instituto (secondary school), where she will prepare students for the Global Classrooms (Model UN) project. Model United Nations is an authentic simulation of the UN General Assembly, UN Security Council, or other multilateral body, which introduces students to the world of diplomacy, negotiation, and decision making.

Brenda’s Fulbright ETA award is funded by the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the Institute of International Education (IIE), and the Community of Madrid.

April 13, 2018—UO ethnic studies professor Alaí Reyes-Santos made a major revision to the curriculum for her “Race, Ethics, Justice” course last fall: She added a trip to Puerto Rico.

It was week three of the term and Reyes-Santos, a native Puerto Rican, was frustrated with the lack of federal aid in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria. It had been weeks since the storm devastated the island and there were still widespread power outages and severely limited access to potable water and medical care.

She saw an opportunity to have her students consider how the overarching questions they were examining about race, ethics and justice were applicable to the crisis, and to use that analysis and knowledge to create resources to help educate the public and spur conversations about those issues. The resources the class created were just published on a new website, “The UO Puerto Rico Project: Hurricane Maria and its Aftermath.”› Continue reading

March 6, 2018—Kohnjehr Woman, a book of poetry by Ana-Maurine Lara, has been nominated as a finalist for the 30th Annual Lambda Literary Awards.

Lara, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon and a CLLAS affiliated faculty member, is an award-winning poet and fiction writer whose novels include Erzulie’s Skirt (RedBone Press 2006) and When the Sun Once Again Sang to the People (KRK Ediciones 2011).

As the foundation states, “The Lambda Literary Award is the most prestigious LGBTQ book prize in the world. With nearly 1000 total submissions considered for nomination it is a significant achievement to be named a finalist.”

Lara will be performing at the 2018 CLLAS Symposium on March 8 at Gerlinger Lounge during the reception (6 pm to 7:30 pm) as part of Riffiando: Dominican Artists in the House!

In the latest CLLAS Notes, you can learn about three field research projects carried out by CLLAS’s first round of Tinker Foundation grantees, including doctoral candidate Evan Shenkin’s study of indigenous land struggles in eastern Bolivia; master’s candidate Emily Masucci’s intergenerational look at indigenous women’s organizing in Manaus, Brazil; and master’s candidate Brenda Garcia Millan’s fascinating and timely investigation of contemporary displacement patterns and responses of Haitians at the U.S.-Mexico Border.

This winter issue of CLLAS Notes includes an article about CLLAS’s Town Hall conversation between activist journalist José Antonio Vargas and SOJC professor Chris Chávez.

CLLAS director Gabriela Martínez highlights the many fall events sponsored by CLLAS, including a teach-in on Puerto Rico in response to the tragic hurricane season that devastated the island and its inhabitants. › Continue reading

On November 21, 2017, CLLAS sponsored a teach-in titled, “History of Environmental, Economic, and Political Debts: Puerto Rico and the US,” featuring professors Cecilia Enjuto-Rangel (Romance Languages) and Rocío Zambrana (Philosophy). They engaged in conversation about Puerto Rico and its place in the contemporary colonial history of the United States.

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